Althea Ducati Racing rider Carlos Checa closes in on title bid with Imola win – WSBK news
Althea Ducati Racing rider Carlos Checa has closed in on his 2011 WSBK title bid and is short of only three points of winning it.
He scored a double podium at the Imola event and strengthened up his championship lead.
Checa lost race one but stood third on the podium. During race two, Checa won after Jonathan Rea faced a technical failure. On the other side, Checa’s strong rival and championship runner up Marco Melandri also faced a technical problem in the mid race.
Checa said, “Race 1 was really exciting, I battled hard with Sykes and it was a clean, fun race. In the end I was perhaps a little faster than him and I closed in third, an already very satisfactory result. Then Race 2 was even more thrilling!”
Now the Spanish rider needs only 13th position in a race to seal his WSBK title for the 2011 season. He has released a big pressure of a title chase for the last four races.
Checa has scored his 12th win in the 2011 season out of 11 events. His third place finish in the race one already pushed him ahead to a safer position from Marco Melandri.
Checa added, “I'm sorry for Rea who had the pace to win, and for Melandri who was perhaps a little unlucky this weekend but of course I'm extremely happy to have won here at Imola.”
The Spanish rider added on that the title run is not over yet but he has a close and safer shot to hit the championship title. For the next race at France, Checa is confident to be strong but it remains to be seen whether he manages it or not.
He termed the Italian race weekend to be the perfect for him and extremely joyous. He feels gracious to his team, Ducati and all the fans who supported him through the season run.
Carlos Checa will be the first Spaniard to become the World Superbike Champion in the history of WSBK series.
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